


i want a real tree, dammit

by blondeslytherin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Lights, Christmas Tree, Fluff, Happy, Kosmo is mean dog, M/M, Singing, but we love him anyway, enjoy, it's just fluff, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blondeslytherin/pseuds/blondeslytherin
Summary: It's their first Christmas together. Lance insists on a real tree, Keith doesn't realllly want to listen to Christmas music, and Kosmo is terrified of the lights.soft fluff to celebrate the holiday season. this is the fic for the holiday fic contest I was running :D
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	i want a real tree, dammit

**Author's Note:**

> yay!! I had so much fun with the holiday fic contest, and thank you so much to everyone who participated! There were a total of 8 entries, and using a random name generator, Mary won. Their prompt was: Keith can sing and he has a gravelly voice that makes Lance swoon. Keith is very shy about it tho and the first time he sings in front of Lance, Lance chokes and his poor bi heart can’t take it. Keith gets super blushy because he wasn’t expecting Lance to like it that much.
> 
> I was hoping to have this written and posted before Christmas, but alas, illness came in and knocked me down for a few days. Having said that, I hope you all read and enjoy!! comments and kudos are loved and appreciated :D

“It’s time to deck these motherfucking halls!” Lance shouts, using his foot to push open the door, hooking it around his toes to hold it for Keith. His boyfriend has his nose tucked into his jacket, brow low as he hauls in their Christmas tree.

These ‘motherfucking halls’ refers to the small apartment that they share. Both in their last year of college, they don’t exactly have the funds to go all out in the way that Lance is used to, but by God Almighty, he’s going to make this space festive.

“Where do you want the tree?” Keith grunts.

“Just set it on the couch for now, we can figure out the perfect spot in a minute.”

Keith face pokes through the branches, all huffy and red. “I am absolutely _not_ setting this pine monstrosity down on the couch. We’re going to get needles everywhere, and when it’s July and we’re still picking them out of our butts, I will in fact say I told you so.”

“Jeez,” Lance says. “Just lean it against the wall then. ‘Scuse me for wanting to make sure Kosmo wasn’t going to jump it and knock the poor thing down.”

Keith grumbles something that vaguely forms the notion that _he_ is the poor thing right now, not the tree.

The tree ends up against the wall, and Keith stands back from it, hands on his hips.

“Does it look a little lopsided to you?”

“Probably just need to wait for the tree to fluff out,” Lance calls over his shoulder, rummaging in their bedroom for the speaker he _knows_ is in there. Ah, there it is.

“Oh no, no, no, _no!_ ” Lance pops his head up, peeking around the corner just in time to see Kosmo leap at the tree in a full sprint, knocking their little Christmas tree to the ground. “Kosmo,” Keith groans, burying his face in his hands.

Their dog—no, right now it’s Keith’s dog—is jumping around the tree, sniffing and hopping and making a general mess of pine needles on the floor.

“Don’t you even dare,” Keith says just as Lance opens his mouth.

“Are you just going to stand there or are you actually going to pick up the tree and save our little Ferb?”

“Ferb? Who’s Ferb?” Keith asks as he grabs Kosmo by the scruff. The pup strains against Keith’s hold, eager to get back to making friends with the tree, but Keith holds him tight.

“Our tree,” Lance says, setting down the speaker and going to set it upright. He spins it in one hand, evaluating. “Well, Ferb mainly looks okay…”

“So we’re ignoring the fact that he’s definitely lopsided? Cool.”

Lance turns around, tree in one hand and the other firmly planted on his hip. Keith stares back at him, Kosmo now calm at his feet, and shrugs.

“Just… just find the fucking tree stand,” Lance grunts. “Put Kosmo in the bedroom.”

“Yes sir,” Keith quips, and Lance has to resist the urge to drop the tree and start a fight.

_Okay. Breathe. It’s Christmas time, for fuck’s sake. You love him. You love winter. You love the tree that you have named Ferb and everything is going to be swell and dandy._

_Swell and dandy. What am I, eighty-two?_

Keith returns with the stand, brushing snow off his shoulders and shivering at the cold. Lance, too, tucks his nose into his sweater before Keith has the ability to shut the door fully.

_I do not fucking love winter._

“I still don’t see why we have to have a real tree,” Keith says, shaking the stand out in the sink before bringing it back over to Lance. “We both know it’s going to drive Kosmo crazy this entire month, and the fake ones were the same price but we can put it up next year.”

“I like real trees,” Lance says, looking their tiny pine up and down. “Okay, you hold the stand steady, and I’ll place Ferb in it.”

The stand is placed to Lance’s direction, and then the tree goes in. The screws are cranked and checked once, twice, before Lance finally takes a hesitant step away from their tree. It stays.

“I say we turn it so the bad part faces the wall,” Keith says.

“I kinda like it the way that it is,” Lance counters. “Gives the tree and the room character.”

“Only you would like the way a misshapen tree looks.”

“Everything needs love! And it’s Christmas time!”

“Oh, what, the Hallmark movies come next?”

Lance stills.

“No,” Keith groans, mouth agape. “You watch the _Hallmark channel?_ ”

“Who are you to mock me!” Lance shouts back.

“It’s the _Hallmark channel!_ ”

“The movies are sweet!”

“They’re all the same!”

Kosmo barks from the bedroom, and Keith’s face cracks. Lance follows suit, laughing, and they both drop onto the couch.

A beat passes. “Ferb needs lights.”

“We just sat _downnnn_ ,” Keith complains.

“But—Ferb!”

Keith looks over at him, violet eyes tired and cheek smushed up against his arm. “Fine. But no Christmas music.”

They start out in silence, stringing lights while Kosmo whines from their bedroom. They’re halfway up the tree and Lance makes a lame excuse of “wanting to see it from a distance,” connecting his phone to the speaker.

“I-i-i-i-i-i—” starts Mariah Carey, and Keith’s head whips around. “Don’t want a lot for Christmas…”

“Lance,” Keith warns.

“There is just one thing I need,” Lance sings, shimmying his way back over to his boyfriend.

“ _Lance,_ ” Keith says, eyes widening as he realizes the music isn’t going to stop.

“And I don’t care about the presents,” Lance continues, grabbing Keith by the waist and twirling him out from the tree, lights and all. Keith laughs as they get strung up in the Christmas lights, Lance tucking himself into Keith’s shoulder as the song plays.

Lance serenades him like that, feeling the warmth of the bulbs through his sweater and the clamminess of Keith’s hands on his shoulders.

Kosmo howls from the bedroom at the high note, and both Keith and Lance laugh, almost falling over. Keith’s eyes widen as the tree tips behind him, and they barely manage to right themselves before it falls.

They twirl out of it, _so brightly everywhere_ , and Keith finishes hanging the lights on the tree. Lance watches, every now and then going over in order to fix a dark spot that Keith missed, or just to give him a smack on the ass.

Darkness falls outside and eventually, Kosmo is let out of the room. He begins to run for the tree again, and Lance gasps in horror, but Kosmo skids to a halt a full five feet away. His ears flatten back against his head and the lights reflect in his big eyes before he shuffles slowly backward.

“Is someone afraid of the tree?” Lance coos, and Kosmo doesn’t spare him a glance, settling behind the couch, away from the tree.

“Hang ornaments tonight or tomorrow?” Lance asks, leaning over the back of the couch to give Kosmo scratches. When there’s no answer from Keith, he pops back up, takes on look at the flat expression dominating his features, and says, “Alright, tomorrow it is.”

Music plays faintly in the background, turned down now that Lance’s big spectacle was complete. He sweeps while Keith brews cocoa in the kitchen and Kosmo sleeps behind the furniture.

It’s domestic. It’s perfect. 

Keith comes over just as Lance finishes sweeping, placing their mugs gently on the coffee table in order to hold the dustpan for him. The pine needles are swept in and deposited in the trash. Lance gives his hands a quick rinse before plopping down on the couch next to Keith. A mug is handed to him, and Lance takes a long inhale.

“I made yours with extra marshmallows,” Keith comments absentmindedly, eyes focused hazily on the tree. Lance takes a sip of the scalding liquid, eyes fluttering shut as said extra marshmallows bump his nose.

“It’s perfect,” Lance says, and he can see the way Keith fidgets as his cheeks brighten.

The playlist shuffles onto the Pentatonix Christmas playlist, and Lance tucks his feet up and his face into Keith’s shoulder. They’ve listened to the entirety of “Silent Night” before Keith speaks.

“Why is it so important to you that we have a real tree?”

Lance drinks some more cocoa before answering. “Growing up in Cuba… there were a lot of us. Not easy being the youngest and a twin at that. Christmas time was always great because it felt like I wasn’t getting picked on for being young anymore. Everyone was way more excited about Santa and the latest games and whatever. We… we never really got much. The tree was threadbare and old and fake by the time I was old enough that the magic of Christmas wasn’t there anymore. Hunk was the very first person I’d ever met who had a real tree and like, for a kid who came from Cuba? That was the shit. I always wanted my own real tree.”

Keith’s head leans down on him and Lance stares into the melting marshmallows in his cup. “You were gone last year, and the year before that, I was back in Cuba. I just wanted our first Christmas together to be something special, you know?” The song changes behind them, _Halleluiah._ “Real tree and all.”

There’s a clatter as Keith’s mug gets set down on the coffee table and strong fingers come up to thread through Lance’s hair. “I do like a real tree,” Keith says softly, words muffled by the mouth pressed to the crown of Lance’s head. “Like the way it smells, the way it looks.”

Those same fingers unwind themselves from Lance’s hair in order to take his mug and set it down next to Keith’s.

_Halleluiah_ ends. A few beats of silence pass before the next song begins. Lance feels the vibration that comes from Keith’s throat as he hums and doesn’t have time to prepare himself before he begins to sing.

“ _Mary did you know_ …”

The song is already in a low chord, and Keith’s naturally deep voice doesn’t have to move at all to hit the notes. It’s a little gruff, like Keith needs to clear his throat, but his fingers lock and unlock and Lance says nothing. Just… listens.

“… _that your baby boy_ …” Gravelly. That’s the word. Keith’s voice is gravelly and thick and if Lance wasn’t in love before, he certainly is now.

A solid flush is building up from Keith’s working fingers, turning his pale skin a light pink, disappearing into the sleeves of his sweater. Lance’s eyes burn, and he feels a drop of wetness slide down his nose, but still, he doesn’t move.

The song finishes, and Keith holds onto the final note well into the next tune. When he’s finally done, and Lance doesn’t think he’s going to shatter himself by speaking, he pulls away just enough to look Keith in the eye.

“You’ve got a beautiful voice,” he whispers.

The rosy hue is covering his entire face now. “Thanks.”

“Thank you,” Lance says, “for sharing that with me.”

“Merry Christmas, babe,” Keith says, and leans in to kiss Lance.

_Merry Christmas indeed,_ Lance thinks as he kisses the love of his life back.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! and happy holidays to all :))
> 
> i'm hoping to run another fic contest around the end of january/early february, but i'm really busy around that time so we'll see. 
> 
> come shout at me @:  
> tumblr: [blondeslytherin](https://blondeslytherin.tumblr.com)  
> insta: blondeslytherine


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